Cape Verde's Minister of Culture: To be Creole is a state of mind

Saturday

Jan 18, 2014 at 10:56 PMJan 18, 2014 at 11:01 PM

He may have been there to speak on the promotion of Cape Verdean Creole and the arts culture of the islands, but Mário Lucio de Sousa, Cape Verde's Minister of Culture, made sure to deliver that message in English.

Kevin G. AndradeO Jornal

He may have been there to speak on the promotion of Cape Verdean Creole and the arts culture of the islands, but Mário Lucio de Sousa, Cape Verde's Minister of Culture, made sure to deliver that message in English.

"I am not afraid to speak in English, because when some of you come to Cape Verde, your Creole is very bad," he said, inciting laughter from his audience.

He was speaking at the Star Store Building, home to the University of Massachusetts Visual Arts campus on Purchase Street in downtown New Bedford, the audience consisted of 25 mostly Cape Verdean Americans.

While he did open up with a joke, the minister's speech, centered around the ongoing discussion of making Creole an official language of Cape Verde alongside Portuguese, did its best to maintain an inclusive definition of what it means to be a Cape Verdean.

"Creole is one of our languages," he said. "It cannot be a condition to be Cape Verdean to speak good Creole… A Cape Verdean's first language is sometimes English or French."

"To be Creole is a state of mind," he continued.

It is in preserving this state of mind that, according to his public remarks, Sousa finds the most important part of his mission as Minister of Culture is the promotion of morabeza — a term meaning the essence of Cape Verde Island culture — through the arts.

"We are working hard to preserve this identity," he said. "We do not want to become a culture of archives, but a living culture."

In enshrining Creole as one of the nation's official languages, he is hoping that it will be used to fortify his nation's identity.

"Most Cape Verdeans want to see the national language as an official language," he said. "There are many opinions and many discussions on the matter."

These include debate as to how to determine which Creole to use without angering certain groups in society, as every island has its own version of the language, he said.

He also says that in strengthening the nation's culture and identity, it will be brought to a more stable place economically.

"We have to work with what we have," he said. "Really the only thing we have in that country is our culture."

Following this hope, the islands will be hosting the second annual Atlantic Music Expo and Kriol Jazz Festival in the capital, Praia, April 7-14. Nearly 300 performers applied for 12 slots to showcase their talents, hailing from the Cape Verde islands and places as far away as the U.S. and China.

"What we're trying to do is create one of the largest music markets in the world,' said Sousa. "It may be a dream, but so is Cape Verde."

Sousa views it as the island working with the most valuable natural resources it has.

"Our history and our culture are the most important things of value we have," he said.

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